FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT BO XILAI - PAGE 2

BEIJING: China's disgraced leader Bo Xilai mentioned the names of former President Hu Jintao and ex-security czar Zhou Yongkang during his high-profile trial over graft charges but the references were omitted from the transcript released by court, a media report said today. While defending allegations of corruption against himself, 64-year-old Bo said that when he was the Commerce Minister he had briefed Hu, then General Secretary of CPC, about plans to grant permission to a private corporate group to import crude oil and petroleum, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported.

By: James Roy The trial of Bo Xilai began on Thursday in Jinan, Shandong province. Bo, who was dismissed last year from his post as party secretary of Chongqing, stands accused of corruption, bribery, embezzlement of public money and abuse of power. Is the trial truly about rooting out corruption, or are there other messages being sent? High-profile trials like these cannot help but send a message. The two most similar cases in recent memory are the 2006 corruption trial of Chen Liangyu, the disgraced Shanghai party secretary (who was succeeded by current Chinese president Xi Jinping)

BEIJING: China's foreign trade will hit a record mark of $1 trillion this year while the domestic market will also expand to $1,811.6 billion, generating huge opportunities for the trade partners of this Communist state, the state media reported today. "With the current development trend, it is estimated that the imports and exports of this year will be over $1,000 billion," China's minister of commerce, Bo Xilai said.In 2003, the total import and export volume of China reached $850 billion, the 4th largest worldwide.

DALIAN (CHINA): India and China have forged a common front to fight attempts by EU and US to deprive the two fast-growing economies of the special benefits of their being developing countries under the WTO regime. The two Asian giants, accounting for 40% of the world population between them, will work together in WTO to thwart attempts by some advanced industrial countries to "divide" developing countries even as they seek to raise their bilateral trade. After a 50-minute meeting with commerce and industry minister Kamal Nath late on Monday, Chinese trade minister Bo Xilai told The Times of India : "There is good potential for bilateral trade and we would like to tap it. " India's trade with China has now risen to $1 billion a month from $1 billion a year a decade ago.

BEIJING: Over three decades after his death, Chairman Mao Zedong remains a "provocative" and "divisive" figure, becoming a rallying point for the emerging "left movement" in China amid growing criticism of his hard-line policies. The 119th birthday of the founder of the Communist Party of China (CPC) was celebrated on December 26 at his birth place in Shaoshan county in Hunan Province, where he remained a cult figure, according to official media reports. "Mao is China's national hero and it was he who reshaped the Chinese spirit when the country was both poor and defeated," Sima Nan , a Maoist scholar who hosted a convention in Beijing on the late leader on behalf of a left group called Utopia, said.

DALIAN,(CHINA): India and China have expressed concern over attempts by some developed countries to "divide" developing nations as WTO negotiations on key issues like agriculture and services reached a critical stage. Commerce Minister Kamal Nath, who had a "fruitful" bilateral meeting with Chinese counterpart Bo Xilai here last night on the sidelines of the Dalian Informal Ministerial Meeting (IMM), said both sides viewed with "serious concern" the attempts by some developed nations to divide the developing nations.

KUALA LUMPUR: China trades fairly with the rest of the world and is pursuing a balance in its external trade, commerce minister Bo Xilai said on Friday. He said that rather than pursuing big trade surpluses with other countries Beijing is trying to narrow its trade surplus. China is under strong pressure from Washington and Brussels to cut its trade surplus, which rose 74% last year to a record $177.5 billion and has climbed more than 80% in the first six months of 2007 from the same period a year earlier.

BEIJING: Chinese Vice-President Xi Jinping is virtually confirmed to be the successor to outgoing President Hu Jintao after he was formally designated as the Secretary General of the once-in-a-decade leadership meet of the ruling Communist party beginning here tomorrow, signalling smooth transfer of power. The preparatory meeting of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) appointed Xi as secretary-general of the five-yearly event, the spokesman of the Communist Party Congress, Cai Mingzhao, told media here ahead of the week-long event.

BEIJING: China's ruling Communist Party in a rare acknowledgement spoke of powerful factions within its ranks as President Xi Jinping undertakes a massive anti-graft drive against powerful disgraced leaders to firmly establish his authority on the 83 million-member-strong party. The acknowledgement of the factions within the ranks came from the official news agency Xinhua which named key members who are linked up to disgraced top leaders of the former President Hu Jintao administration like Zhou Yongkang and Ling Jihua.

BEIJING: In an unprecedented move, China has ordered an audit of income and expenses of all levels of the 2.3 million strong armed forces, in the wake of a series of corruption scandals within the military involving several top Generals and officers. The military is set to begin a one-year long audit covering all levels of the armed forces as the central government continues its efforts to crack down on corruption within the military, state-run Global Times reported today.